She looked at the man whose name she hadn't bothered to pay heed to when she'd heard it. She could scarce believe he'd gone to such lengths to uncover the truth of Angus's tales. Then again, with the state of his keep, perhaps he had need of the gold.
But to give him what he asked?
Never.
"Your journey was wasted," she said flatly. "I have nothing to tell you."
"You lie!"
The sudden violence in his voice made her jump. Fear stole over her in spite of her fine vow to remain calm.
"My brother is the liar," she managed.
"But he said you knew—"
"He is a boastful, foolish boy who should have remained at home and passed his time mucking out the stables," she said. "My father is the greater fool for having let him leave the keep."
The man cursed fluently and at great length. Then he looked at her. "You're of no use to me then."
A desperate hope bloomed suddenly in her breast. "Then you'll release me?"
"And have you return to your sire and snivel out your sorry tale?" He shook his head. "I think not. I was the fool for thinking your sire would have entrusted you with knowledge of any value." He laughed shortly. "He didn't even give you a name. What does he call you? Gel?"
She pursed her lips. 'Twas true her father could never remember her name. Being that she was his eldest girl-child and the only girl sired on his first wife, girl was what he called her. But her mother had given her a name, one that her father was too feeble to wrap his tongue around. Her mother had never used it save for her ears alone. She supposed now that no one remembered what it was. Certainly her half-brothers didn't. Nothing they called her was worth repeating.
Nay, her true name she would keep as hers alone, until she met a man worthy to share it with. And that man would not be the one standing before her.
Her other secret was indeed the secret of her keep, but neither would she give that. Not upon pain of death, for so she had sworn herself. Her grandfather had entrusted it to her, and she would not betray that trust.
Though she had to admit that giving her grandsire her word when they were together on the side of a mountain was one thing; keeping that word when she alone was looking at death was another.
"If you let me go," she said, trying mightily to keep the quaver from her voice, "I will not return home." There was no sense in not trying to free herself. She hadn't given her word not to do that.
"The promise of a Scot means nothing."
"But—"
"Nothing," he interrupted shortly.
"My brothers will come to see how I fare," she warned, though she knew in her heart that wasn't true.
The man grunted. "They seemed rather happy to see the last of you. I doubt anyone will come after you." He folded his arms over his chest. "This choice I will at least offer you. Will you starve, or will you be put to the sword?"
Her heart felt as if it might shake the very walls surrounding her with the force of its pounding. A slow death or a less slow one. Where was the choice in that? She looked at the man facing her and could scarce believe she found herself in his clutches.
"You," she said, "are an honorless whoreson."
"Perhaps. But at least I am giving you a say in your end."
"And I am to be grateful for it?"
" 'Tis more than your sire offered you."
There was truth in that. She took a deep breath, then attempted a swallow, which she found to be a futile exercise. She'd seen men starved to death in her father's pit, and it wasn't pleasant. Perhaps there would be pain with the other, but it would be over much sooner. And it seemed a braver way to die, if one had to die.
But, by the very saints of heaven, she didn't want to die. She wanted to live. She wanted with every bit of her soul to continue drawing breath long enough to have her heart's desire.
She wanted to see the sea.
And she wanted the man of her dreaming to look at it with.
The man facing her drew his sword. Perhaps he thought she wasn't able to choose. Perhaps he thought he offered her the more merciful death. She suddenly found her thoughts less on what she would never have and more on not shaming herself by falling to her knees and weeping. She was, after all, a MacLeod, and a MacLeod always died well if he could.
So she lifted her chin, stared her murderer full in the face, and let his sword do its foul work unhindered.
And then Iolanthe MacLeod knew no more.
Chapter 1
MAINE
AUGUST 2001
Thomas MacLeod McKinnon was a man with a problem.
Not that problems bothered him usually. He generally viewed them as challenges to be solved, heights to be summitted, obstacles to be climbed over and outdone. That was before. This was now, and his current problem was the sight before him.
There were—and he couldn't really call them anything else—mouse ears poking up from behind his rhododendron.
He blinked, drew his hand over his eyes for good measure, then looked again.
Now the ears were gone.
He shifted his last sack of American junk food to his other arm, then crossed his porch to look more closely at the bush in question. He bent down and studied it, trying to judge what the angle of his vision had been a moment before and how such an angle might set a particular configuration of leaves into an earlike pattern. He pitted all his skills of observation and his considerable stores of logic and ingenuity against the problem. After several minutes of effort, he came to a simple conclusion:
He was losing his mind.
"Okay," he said
